The Usual Suspects Return With a JP8080 Emulation!

The Usual Suspects are back, and it looks like this time they’ve figured out how to emulate the elusive and legendary Roland JP8080!

From what we can hear in the demo, it sounds like a fully exact emulation, excluding perhaps the DAC’s specific sound. But as far as we can hear on our end here in the studio, all the JP8080 oscillator and effect and filter behaviors and tones are precisely captured, so it sounds like this will be the definitive software clone of the JP8080! So classic trance sounds will live on even after the last JP8080’s chips give out and there’s no replacements left!

Take a listen below and see what you think

No word yet on whether or not our performance banks will load into it, but given that our Virus TI2 and Nord Lead 2X sound banks load into the OsTIrus and Nodal 2X Red emulations, it seems more than likely that our JP8080 performance banks will also load fully into the plugin. It sounds truly fantastic, and we’re super excited to see another of our favorite classic VA synths immortalized in a software emulation that can outlive the original.

…Now we’re just waiting on a Novation Supernova II clone

Keep an eye on The Usual Suspects’ site and this space for further updates!

Roland JP-8080 Review 2025

Digital. Plastic. Overused. Just A Trance Machine. Common comments made about the Roland JP-8080 (and its predecessor the JP-8000). Since its release in 1998, the JP-8080 has become a foundational staple in the Trance genre, and every music genre that has ever borrowed its big detuned SuperSaw sound since. Along the way it has earned a great deal of love… and hate. Ground-breaking for its time, and originally designed as a Virtual Analog successor to the legendary Jupiter-8, it saw use in nearly every big dance tune of the late 90s and early 2000s. But how does it hold up today? Is it still relevant and useful in 2025? Let’s dive in and have a look.

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OSCILLATORS

Let’s be honest. This is almost certainly what brought you here. The original SuperSaw synth, its 7 asymmetrically-detuned Sawtooth waves run off a single oscillator with logarithmic-scale detuning enabled producers to create massive, lush leads and pads with 2 knob turns, and consequently create epic sounds that would propel Trance into the mainstream.

The SuperSaw, besides the aforementioned wave-stacking and detuning, also hid a hipass filter inside the oscillator, to eliminate low frequency mud from the saw waves. So out the gate, it sounds a touch thinner than the raw Sawtooth oscillator. It’s rough, it’s a little harsh, but with the right filter and Amp envelope settings, and a generous bit of reverb, it still sounds as big and epic as ever. Modern SuperSaws from Sylenth or Spire or Viper or Serum 2 may be able to reach even bigger levels of wave-stacking and polyphony, but the original still sounds spectacular, and with the right filter and EQ adjustments, will sound excellent in a modern tune.

All the other waveforms are fairly standard, and tend to be on the bright and sharp side. The Sawtooth in particular feels a little reminiscent of the JD-800 Saw, but as this is a VA synth with free-running oscillators, the sound is a bit rougher and more natural-sounding.

The Pulse wave has full sweep, and one of the knobs activates PWM, so classic analog strings can be had easily enough. Only real gripe is that you can’t switch the PWM source to anything except LFO 1, so no creating interesting modulated pulse plucks using the Filter Envelope as a source, like you can on Moogs or the Prophet Rev2, or the Blofeld.

The Feedback osc is quite interesting, as it is intended to mimic the sound of guitar feedback, for electric guitar noises. Combined with distortion and layered with other waveforms, this actually sounds very exciting, and is a fun addition.

Noise is also quite helpful, and you can sweep the frequency range and resonance, to dial in very precise flavors of Noise to add a little sizzle to your sounds (although honestly the oscillators on this synth are so bright it hardly seems necessary).

The Triangle wave can also be swept and modulated, and that yields a few interesting timbres. The Sync and Ring Mod functions baked into the Osc section are also cool, and are quite helpful for achieving bell tones and interesting gritty sounds.

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FILTER

This is the other feature that really lends the JP a lot of its character. For a digital filter it can be steppy or smooth, but it has a distinctive feel that is hard to replicate elsewhere. The 12 dB slope tends to be my favorite, as the 24 dB is almost too steep, and even tiny Res amounts make sounds too rubbery and squeaky. Key Follow really works a treat on this filter though, and you can improve the clarity of arpeggios very nicely using it tactically in designing sounds for Trance or Techno.

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ENVELOPES

Here’s where we get to the character of the synth that invites the second most controversy behind the SuperSaw. the infamous Clicky Envelopes of the JP. For those of you who don’t own one, the JP has a feature built in that if the Attack and Release sliders for both envelopes are set to 0, and you pull down the filter cutoff while playing notes, you will hear a distinct, loud, Click sound.

It leaps out and is super annoying in most contexts, and has been a source of annoyance for producers for decades.

The only way to eliminate it is to set the Attacks on the Filter & Amp envelopes to +3 or 4, and the Releases much higher than that.

For a long time, folks though it was some kind of bug. But it seems Roland intentionally designed the oscillators and envelopes to do that, in order to replicate the breathy clicky attack of a Hammond organ. To make synthesized sounds feel more like a vintage organ. Which is a pretty strange thing to do, when none of the JV or JD synths that came out right before it did that.

It’s an annoyance when you want to do really tight snappy plucks or punchy basses with zeroed out attacks and low cutoffs, because you can’t get rid of it, but for basically any other kind of sound where tight attacks and low cutoffs aren’t required, it’s a trivial matter to adjust the settings to avoid the issue.

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LFO

The JP sports pretty typical LFOs for an analog-modeling synth from the 90s, so the usual suspects of the Triangle, Saw, Pulse, and S&H are there to choose from. Which for fairly simple vibratos and tremolos and PWM sounds (and some glitchy textures) are fine. What’s lacking in here are things like Reverse Saw, or Sine, or Filter Envelope as LFO sources, which is a shame. Doing modulated pulse plucks (as we are fond of) with a Filter as the source for the PWM is borderline impossible, except by using the Saw wave as a source, and it doesn’t allow for the same granularity of control as if a more static source could be used.

It would also have been nice if it were possible to modulate the Mix Depth or Detune of the SuperSaws, for added character. But as this synth shares more technical capabilities with our Sub37 than our Blofeld, we can’t really say too much.

Don’t expect super wild capabilities out of the LFOs for this synth, is what we’re saying.

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MODULATION

Building on the remarks about the LFO, the Modulation capabilities of the JP are also pretty restricted. LFO 2 is technically permanently linked to the Modwheel, so unless you turn it up using a software interface, you won’t have much access to it for front-panel sound design.

Various parameters scattered around the synth are linked to the LFO, so you can modulate various oscillators, the filter, the panning, and the pitch and X-Mod setting, so there’s some fun to be had there.

The X-Mod is also interesting - it’s sort of like a rudimentary implementation of FM, and at the right octaves, and with a little distortion, and yield some cool screaming and growling tones to roughen up otherwise bland sounds.

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EFFECTS

This is a section where there are big hits, and big misses. The big hits come in the form of the EQs, which can really make the sounds shine (sometimes too much), the Chorus, the Flanger, and the Distortion. The Distortion pushes into gnarly territory really quickly, so if you’re after gentle saturation, be very very light on it. The Chorus FX are nice and full of character, and you can hear it all over classic trance records.

Mind that your leads/pads don’t get lost in a modern mix when you use it, though. The Chorus does not play nice when summed to Mono.

The Delay is also quite nice on the JP. There’s no cutoff controls and only some deep menu diving to access the timed delay clock time settings, but it bounces around nicely and adds welcome movement and width to leads and plucks.

And the Flanger, Especially the Deep Flanger, is cool.

The misses however, are pretty big. The Phasers, the Jet Phase, the Freeze Phase, all borderline unusable. I don’t recall ever really hearing them on any tracks over the years either. The Feedback on them always seemed to be totally maxed out, so the Phasers except at the most minimal of settings, always had a painful ringing howling quality to them that made them unusable. If you’re desperate for a Phaser to use on your JP, route it into a Virus TI, and use the Phaser on 3 or 6 pole mode. The Virus Phaser is much easier to control and sounds much much nicer.

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CONCLUSION

So having said all that, is the JP still a relevant synth today?

Before we answer that, let me add one final thought to this about a technical aspect that is incredibly valuable to remember:

With the JP, you don’t have one single synth to work with. If you run the synth in Performance mode (which is advised), and set it to Dual and get the MIDI channels for each set up correctly, you have 2 synths running at once, and if you adjust each layer for different octaves, or FX, or different kinds of sounds for each layer, or even duplicate a sound for each layer and then pan each one in opposite directions, you can achieve massive monumental sounds that will melt your brain and blow your mind.

We always work in Performance mode on our JP because being able to make really huge sounds that require minimal processing is always nicer than making a big heap of smaller-sounding patches that will require more layering/ processing to fill out a mix.

So having said that, is the JP worthit in 2025?

If you’re mostly focused on totally modern sounds that require a lot of complex modulations, this bit of vintage kit is probably not for you. While it can achieve modern sounds, vis a vis the new breeds of melodic techno and classic-inspired uplifting trance, it will always have a character more classic and oldschool in flavor. Which can be great for adding into a modern production for a little throwback flair. But that may not be for everyone.

Does it still sound great though? Absolutely. There are few sounds more satisfying than a real JP SuperSaw in a classic-styled epic trance tune, or a melodic techno tune channeling some oldschool vibes. We’ll be using ours until it burns out and gives up, someday in the distant future.

If you can find one for a good price, get one, and have fun. But if you’re after something more versatile and flexible, you may want to investigate the Blofeld or Mininova instead.

Novation Mininova Review 2025

Small. Cheap. A toy. A lot of folks dismiss the Mininova as a keyboard made for kids, or for broke musicians who can’t afford “real” gear. Is there any merit to those claims? Or does the Mininova hide more under its hood than meets the eye?

Let’s jump in and take a look!

*Everything in this review also applies to the Ultranova as well. They are functionally the same synth, except the Ultranova can also act as an audio interface

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OSCILLATORS

First question folks want to know, is what Oscillators and waveforms does this thing have?

And the short answer: a lot.

It has 3 Oscillators to work with. And for each of those, you can choose from:

14 of the standard waves ranging from Sine, to Triangle, to Sawtooth, to Pulse/Square/PWM, and a lot of fixed permutations in between.

20 Digital Waves based on various digital and acoustic instruments (although they are not samples)

36 Wavetables whose positions can be freely swept from a sine all the way to clangorous ringing metal sounds.

And beyond all those, you are also presented in the Mixer section with a Noise generator, that lets you select between several grades of White Noise, to allow you to dial in exactly how much hiss you want in a sound.

Each oscillator also has a V-Sync that acts like an Osc Sync or FM function, and Density and Detune knobs that behave like the JP-8000 SuperSaw, with multiplying the waves and spreading their tones to create fat lush sounds. And unlike the JP, Density+Detune works on any of the waves, so you can create haunting and lush ambient wavetable pads and leads that only the Blofeld or Virus on extreme Unison settings can accomplish.

Just be prepared to sacrifice polyphony when you mess around with Wavetables and the Density. Those eat up the dynamic voices super fast.

Making SuperSaws on the Mininova sounds closer to the JP-8000 sound than just about any other synth out there, and it has the added bonus of being able to make 3, at different octaves, so some truly massive sounds can be achieved, that sound remarkably close to the Trance OG.

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FILTERS

The filters alone put the Mininova in a class all its own. Dual filters, that run a gamut from standard lopass and hipass, to bandpass filters with different slope angles in each direction, really make this synth absurdly versatile for anything from traditional analog style tones to seriously crazy psychedelic and evolving ambient sounds that even the Virus TI can’t quite match.

As for character, the filters are mostly-digital in character, as to be expected. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and you can achieve some smooth moogy type sounds on it, but it will require a little more effort to achieve than what a Slim Phatty can pull off by default.

The Filter Drive is super nice, and is very helpful for either adding extra grit or warmth to patches.

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ENVELOPES

These are fairly standard, although there are added triggering and looping options that are quite nice. And besides the standard Amp and Filter Envelopes, the Mininova also comes with an extra 4 Envelopes to allow for some incredibly complex sound-sculpting capabilities before you’ve even gotten to the LFOs.

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LFO

And the LFOs are pretty superb too. They can range in speed from super slow waves to intense buzzy speeds, and with 3 of them, you will rarely be wanting for more LFOs to modulate sounds with. The usual suspects for LFO waveforms are there, and there are tons of additional options for tweaking things like Slew, and triggering, and other deep functions, to create super wild sounds.

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MODULATION

The ModMatrix has 20 slots available, which you can route a lot of functions to, in multiple ways. Positive or Negative value only for LFOs? Both at once? Want to run the Modwheel and LFO on the same mod slot? Modwheel and Envelope 3 Amount? All possible.

Only a tiny handful of parameters like the Density and Density Detune and the Rate Reducer/ BitCrusher effects can’t be modulated in a more granular way (which was our gripe on the Blofeld as well), so talking basses using Rate Reducer won’t be quite as nice as on the Virus.

But the massive number of Mod slots makes up for that, as you can route all kinds of parameters in tandem or parallel, enabling the creation of truly massive and complex soundscapes.

Even the Virus doesn’t have this many Mod slots, and for making super cosmic Ambient and Psytrance patches, the Mininova is a sound designer’s dream just for these Mod capabilities alone..

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EFFECTS

This one is a mixed bag. The Chorus, Phaser, Distortion, and Delay are all very nice and flexible. The reverb isn’t too impressive, but most folks are liable to turn it off anyway, to conserve DSP power and use their preferred reverb. There are multiple routing modes for the FX, so you can experiment with different routings for each slot, to change the timbre of the sounds and how the effects affect each other.

The majority of the FX have lots of useful settings for dialing in perfect Chorus and Phaser settings, and the delay is nice too. One feature that’s missing that’s annoying is a lack of individual Amount and Mix controls for the Distortion. For Distortion, it’s all or nothing. So if you’re like us, and want to modulate the amount of Rate Reduction or Bitcrushing on a sound using an envelope or lfo, but you want to keep the mix level of the effect the same, so only the rate movement fluctuates, you’re out of luck. It’s a fairly small gripe, but it’s still an issue.

The Gator effect is super cool, and is nice for creating cool stuttering and morphing FX.

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CONCLUSION

So, in 2025, is the Mininova still worth buying?

The answer shouldn’t be a big surprise at this point.

Yes. Even with only 18 voices of dynamic polyphony, its features make it a very worthwhile synth. It can easily handle anything from Trance to Dubstep to Hardstyle to Ambient, and sound great, doing it. You might want to invest in a quality outboard reverb to apply to it to truly feel the power of the synth, but beyond that, you won’t find a better synth for a better price.

This is a budget keyboard that sounds like a flagship unit, and with a little coaxing (or a few 3rd party banks), this will quickly become the centerpiece of your studio.

Arturia Jup-8000 V Performances!

You’ve been asking us for weeks, and now we can finally tell you, that our JP-8080 banks load in the Arturia Jup-8000 V plugin!

A very enterprising app developer created a conversion tool for JP presets and performances, and we just got through converting all our banks into the format the Arturia plugin will read!

Note, the FX will need to be turned on within the plugin and tweaked a bit to make them exact, but all the oscillator, envelope, and filter settings are the same, so you can add your sounds and get right on it!

There’s a complete README included with each bank with instructions, to help you get everything up and running!

Get the sounds now

Moog Sub37 Review 2025

Smooth. Fat. Overdriven. Powerful. Just a few words that get bandied about when talking about the Moog Sub 37. Released in 2014, it was one of their most feature-laden synths to-date. How does it hold up in 2025? Does it live up to the hype? Is it still worth getting now? Let’s dive in and find out.

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OSCILLATORS

As is typical for post-millennium Moogs, the Sub37 comes with 2 standard oscillators with octave switches and fully-sweepable wave knobs, which can yield some extremely exciting possibilities. Alongside the 2 normal Oscs, it also sports a Sub oscillator (which is just a Square wave tuned 1 octave below Osc 1), and a Pink Noise generator.

The oscillators are brighter than the Slim Phatty, but not quite as aggressive as the Sub Phatty. They definitely sound more ‘modern’ than the Slim Phatty, and not quite as classically-Moogy as the Slim/Little Phatty or earlier Moogs.

Past the 7:00 position on the Mixer gain dials, the Oscillators start to overdrive, which can yield some pleasingly gnarly tones when combined with the Feedback and Multidrive, but can make creating smoother gentler sounds a bit more challenging. You have to be especially mindful of this when trying to use pure Sawtooth waves in your sounds, as pushing them too hard starts to clip them and turn them into Square waves. The headroom on the Oscs was expanded for the Subsequent37, so this section doesn’t apply to that model.

Like with the Sub Phatty, the Pink Noise generator is a nice extra, but would have been better-implemented as a White Noise generator, to make it easier to use in modern Techno and Trance and House sounds. The low end on the Pink Noise overwhelms sounds a bit too easily and interferes with tonal balance on uppper-register sounds.

What’s nice though, like with the Sub Phatty (and much easier to manipulate on the 37), is the ability to detune Osc 2 from Osc 1, with more granular controls for the detuning, via the Beat Freq knob, so you can achieve some nice Reese basses or detuned hard trance lead sounds.

The PWM on this is really nice, and being able to fully sweep the waves independently with each LFO yields some very cool sounds.

And one mode that is super nice, is Duo Mode. With that enabled, you can play paraphonic 2-note chords, which is a lot of fun.

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FILTERS

That’s the other feature everyone is always most interested in when it comes to Moogs. And for this one, it yields some interesting surprises. The filter slopes are conveniently changeable from the front panel, so no obtuse button-diving like on the Sub Phatty.

And the maximum frequency cutoff for the Sub37 goes noticeably higher than on the Slim/Little Phatty, so it gets brighter and sharper than the older Moogs. That added brightness does pull away some of the attention from the saturated low-mids older Moogs were known for, but being a bit sharper and brighter here makes it much more useful in modern mixes.

Sizzling leads, snappy plucks, and gritty basses really shine on this synth, and the resonance can push sounds into some nice extreme territory.

Overall the filter still sweeps and behaves smoothly like a Moog filter should, albeit the higher cutoff makes sounds a bit brighter and harsher than they would be on an older Phatty. But using it in 4 pole filter slope mode mitigates that.

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ENVELOPES

This is another area where the Sub37 pulls away from all its predecessors. At face value it looks like just a standard ADSR. But those 2 buttons, Delay and Hold, turn these Envelopes into DAHDSR, and can be set to be triggered, synced, and looped, opening up whole new worlds of sound sculpting possibilities.

The behavior is pretty standard otherwise.

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LFO

Now things get really interesting. 2 LFOs that can be MIDI and clock synced? And with more routing options than other past Moogs? You better believe it. And they can go into Audio Rate territory, which is super cool.

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MODULATION

What makes this really surpass the Sub Phatty that we reviewed earlier, is that there are independent Mod controls for Pitch and Filter, and for many other parameters, and the knobs are +/- at 12:00 as a starting point, so you can set negative values for different sweeps and modulations. LFO 2 works all the time any time, but LFO 1 is linked to the Modwheel. So you either need to keep the modwheel on the keyboard turned up all the time while using the front panel, or set the modwheel to Up while using the VST editor, and keep it up when saving the patches, if you want to modulate sounds with more complexity.

For added fun, hold the Mod 2 button and turn any knob, to automatically route Mod 2 to that parameter!

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EFFECTS

Like with all the Moogs that came out before 2018, this is barebones on effects. One thing it does include that is super nice, are independent Feedback and Multidrive controls. Feedback is just a dedicated control implementation of the old Minimoog Model D trick of routing the audio output from the filter back into the mixer, which yields some crazy distortion when you start pushing it. And the Multidrive is nice for everything from gentle saturation to heavy crunchy distortion. You won’t find any other effects on this synth, but that’s not generally what folks get Moogs for in the first place.

End result can be anything from dark crunchy sounds to screaming wailing shrieks… and every flavor of gnarly 303 style Acid sounds in between.

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CONCLUSION

At the end of all this, is the Sub37 still worthit in 2025?

I would say, yes. For the modern Trance/Psytrance/Chillout producer, this synth is much more versatile than the Little Phatty or Sub Phatty, and it can be as gentle or as aggressive as you want, with minimal effort.

Its tone might not suit someone on the hunt for a truly Classic Moog Sound, but for a modern analog duo/mono synth, this fares very nicely. The Subsequent37 adds a couple nice extras, including more headroom for the Oscillators at the Mixer stage, but that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for you.

If you can find this for a good deal, you will enjoy this keyboard a lot.

Moog Sub Phatty Review 2025

Aggressive. Grungy. Sterile? There are a lot of very interesting opinions about the Sub Phatty out there, and only a few of them overlap. Released in 2013, it was the beginning of the Sub series of synths from Moog, and it marked a shift in tone for Moog synths for a while. So how does it stack up in 2025? Is it worth getting today? Let’s dive in.

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OSCILLATORS

The first thing you’ll hear, are the oscillators. There’s 2 main oscillators, plus a Sub Osc that is permanently set to Square, and plays 1 octave below Osc 1, and a Pink Noise generator.

Compared to the Slim Phatty, the Sub Phatty raw oscillator tone is aggressive and in your face. Where the Slim Phatty has a smoother rounder tone (partly due to the lower cutoff point for the filter, and also because of the chips used for the VCOs) suitable for vintage 70s and 80s sounds, the Sub Phatty is brighter and dirtier and punches through in a mix more noticeably. It’s not brassy like the Prophet Rev2, but much more aggressive than the Slim.

The 2 main Oscs have full wave sweep capabilities, ranging from pure Triangle wave all the way to narrow Pulse, in a continuous function. It’s quite nice for creating some very exotic dirty electro basses and Psytrance noises.

The Osc Sync function is interesting, although it doesn’t feel like it can penetrate the same territory as the Slim Phatty’s Osc Sync. The Slim’s Sync can veer into full on FM territory with a little coaxing, and DX7 style sounds can be managed on it, whereas the Sub Phatty’s sync never quite achieves the same variety of metallic and hollow sounds.

The Pink Noise generator is helpful for some classes of sounds - the manual states producers like to use it for Percussion sounds. But for modern Techno, House, and Trance producers, Pink Noise is much less useful for modern sound design, since the low frequencies tend to crowd out the rest of the sound and mess with the tone balance. Pure White Noise or some kind of sweepable Noise generator that allows for Pink and White Noise would have been much more useful for making modern Melodic Techno and Progressive Trance sounds.

The 2 layers of Detune capabilities for the Sub Phatty are a welcome touch though, as the single Freq knob on the Slim Phatty makes it very difficult to create detuned Trance and Psytrance saw leads without veering off into uncontrolled tuning territory. Being able to detune very slightly on the main Frequency knob and then adjust the secondary knob a tiny to taste makes it easy to make usable sounds very quickly.

It’s worth noting that pushing the Oscs too loud starts to overdrive them, so factor that into your sound design choices when working with it. A delicate approach is needed when trying to make smooth and gentle sounds with these oscillators.

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FILTERS

Besides the Oscillators, this is really what everyone goes to Moog for. But does it have that Classic Moog Ladder Filter Sound?

The Sub Phatty is brighter, is our first impression. It certainly cuts off at a higher frequency than the Slim Phatty. And that sound brightens up further when you reduce the filter slope curves. Tricky part is accessing those slope curves. There’s some obtuse ways to access them via some front panel controls, which I did manage with the manual handy. But it was far from convenient. With the VST editor from Moog, it’s much much easier to change those, and access some other deep settings that expand the sound design capabilities of the synth.

The resonance pushes into self-oscillation and yields some extremely gnarly sounds when cranked in tandem with the Multidrive. It doesn’t quite sound as bright on 303-style Acid sounds that use a low cutoff and moderate Envelope Amount settings, but it can achieve some nice grit that adds fun textures to Techno and Trance tracks.

It didn’t feel quite as ‘round” and smooth as the Slim Phatty, or even the Prophet Rev2, but it did surprise us with its character while experimenting with Plucks and deep Basses.

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ENVELOPES

The Envelopes here are pretty normal, as far as synths go, so there’s not too much to say here. The Attack is a bit shorter and tighter than Some folks may be accustomed to, so you have to push it really far to make slow evolving sweeps. It’s great for Plucked sounds, though. The snappy envelopes make Techno and Trance plucks a breeze to design.

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LFO

Now this is where some serious excitement is to be had. The Sub Phatty has 3 different LFO Speed Modes, which can be changed via obtuse key combos on the synth… or more easily on the VST editor. And that’s where the fun begins. Switching between Slow, Mid, and Hi speeds allows you to do really gentle wavering swells, more moderate vibratos, or even insane audio rate modulation. We got a lot of great use out of these settings while designing buzzy Hands Up and Progressive House Leads, and on some cinematic sweep type patches. This is one of the Sub Phatty’s strongest points, and really puts it in a league more in line with crazy super-mod synths like the Blofeld or Virus.

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MODULATION

As this is an analog synth marketed as more of a budget synth a notch or two beyond the Little Phatty, there isn’t too much to talk about here. Routing options are pretty minimal. It would have been nice if the Amount controls began at 12:00 and could be changed to positive or negative values to yield more exotic modulations. But for the synth’s overall capabilities, the modulation options are workable.

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EFFECTS

“Effects” is a bit of an inaccurate header for this section. All the Sub Phatty has is Multidrive. Which we found to be more of a Saturator on lower settings, and then at higher settings, it turns into distortion. It doesn’t mangle the sound quite as nicely as the Overdrive on the Slim Phatty or the Feedback + Multidrive combo on the Sub37, but it does yield some nice added grit to sounds.

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CONCLUSION

So, at the end of all things, is the Sub Phatty worthit? Is it still relevant in 2025?

While it lacks in modulation capabilities and the Pink Noise isn’t nearly as useful as the manual claims, this synth has a lot of heft to it, and if you are looking for a snappy semi-modern sounding Moog that can do aggressive sounds and more serene tones, this one would work well for you.

Its oscillators are big and aggressive, and the filter does add a lot of nice character.

In the right contexts, this synth could stand front and center in some very big tunes, and add a lot of welcome character. It definitely works great for Tech and Electro House basses.

So while it might not be our first choice for an analog synth, if you happen to find one at a good price, it could serve a lot of solid uses in your tunes and set you apart from everyone else. Its aggressive gusty character almost takes it to Prodigy territory, and if you can run it through other FX for reverb or distortion or chorus, you will get some very exciting tones out of it.

So overall, we might recommend a couple other synths before this one to Synth Newbies, but we would not turn our nose up at future opportunities to work on it either. We’d recommend it for producers and keyboardists after a specific kind of gritty sound.

That’s our take on it, anyway.

We're on GearNews!

Hey all, 2 of our latest Nord Lead soundsets, for the 2X and 3 respectively, have been featured in the new GearNews article about sounds and presets!

Check it out!

READ HERE

Synth Showdown is here!

Ever wondered about the differences in sound between a Moog and a Prophet?

Wonder no more!

Big news, softsynth users!

Most of you are probably already aware that Waldorf just released a VST version of the Blofeld hardware synth, and our Blofeld soundsets will work in them!

Waldorf Blofeld VST Plugin

So if you’ve been wanting to get your hands on our Blofeld soundbanks, but didn’t want to shell out for a hardware Blofeld, now you can have your cake and eat it too!

Waldorf Blofeld Soundsets

100 soundsets!

It’s a big day here at Kulshan Studios! We just completed our 100th soundset, and because our very first ever soundset that we ever made, Adventure Trance Vol 1 for the Adam Szabo JP6K VST, we decided to bring things around full circle by making Adventure Trance Vol 6 for JP6K!

Grab the bank today, and celebrate 100 Kulshan Studios soundsets with us!

I declare this the Summer of George!

Just kidding

But in all seriousness, this will be the Autumn of Ambient. We’re mostly finished with an Ambient/ Downtempo soundbank for the Nord Lead 3, and we’ll be working on Ambient and Downtempo banks for our other synths like the JP8080, Prophet Rev2, and others this autumn, so you all have access to more chill sounds this winter.

Stay tuned!

Our first Largo soundbank is here!

After putting it off for a few… years… we have finally gotten ‘round to completing our first Waldorf Largo soundbank! We started off with Trance, and there will be more in the future, so stay tuned!

You can buy Adagio Trance Soundset for Waldorf Largo now!

Our first Spire soundbank has landed!

Thought we’d never get around to releasing some VST soundbanks, did you?

Well, thanks to our friend Triplestar in the Netherlands, we now have our very first Spire soundset available and ready to use in your next club smasher!

Buy Rave Essentials Vol 1 now!

The Links have landed!

Hey everyone, you may have noticed we added a new menu for Links on our site. These are for directing you to free and paid editor/librarian apps for different synths, effect plugins, and associates of ours that offer music services that can help you extend and improve the songs you make using our presets and samples!

Take a look and pay them a visit - you’ll be glad you did!

Clavia Nord Lead 2X Review 2024

Bright. Sharp. Aggressive. Cold. Common comments made about the Nord Lead 2X, the successor to the famous Nord Lead 2 that came out in 1997. The 2X came out in 2003, and improved on the original with expanded polyphony, more user memory, and upgraded 96 kHz 24-bit DACs. Some users complained that it sounded a bit too ‘clean’ compared to the 2 and the 1, and that it sounds dated compared to more modern synths.

But with analog and VA synths becoming trendy again, and music reverting to the 90s in style and mood, it seems like the Nord Lead 2X may be swept up in the revival.

So is it still worthit in 2024? Let’s find out.

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OSCILLATORS

At first, the 2X looks simple and straightforward enough. Conventional analog waveforms like the Triangle, Sawtooth, and Pulse come standard on both Oscs, but Oscillator 1 also includes a Sine wave, and Osc 2 has Noise available, whose color can be brightened or dulled by turning the Semitones knob.

The Pulse Width can also be modulated, but unlike on the Nord Lead 3, or most other analog-modeling synths, the Pulse Width is a Master control, so turning the knob or linking PW to an LFO or the Modulation section affects the Pulse Width for pulse waves on both oscillators at the same time and the same way. There is no Pulse Width variability per oscillator to add complexity, which can be a little frustrating if you want to create more complex pulse-based tones.

However, one area the 2X shines is in the FM capabilities. By jumping between oscillators, and playing with semitones and adjusting the FM, you can create some convincing-sounding DX-like tones on it, and I even managed to recreate some classic DX7 slap bass style sounds on it fairly easily.

The Sync and Ring Mod behave more or less like normal for any synth, and I personally have very little use for them, since they don’t factor into genres of music I write.

Now the big question you’re all wondering is, “How does it sound?” And the answer is:

Excellent.

The saws and pulses are bright, pop, and full of harmonics that become fizzier higher up the keyboard you go, so midrange basses, plucks, and bright detuned leads have a very pleasing musical quality to them that cuts through a mix without being too in-your-face, and the sines and triangles are also good and clean, and lend themselves well to all manner of crazy FM tones.

The Fine Tune detuning between Osc 1 and 2 has a somewhat odd and uneven curve to it, as it seems to detune more rapidly and aggressively turned clockwise, and less aggressive detuned counter-clockwise. It can be helpful when trying to make 80s leads that are detuned by small increments, but it takes a little getting used to.

Some folks complain that the synth doesn’t sound “fat” enough on its own. And compared to a Moog, it doesn’t. But for a modern dance mix, that lack of heavy fatness is a blessing in disguise, as it requires little to no processing to sit cleanly in a mix. These oscillators are definitely the big strong point of this synth.

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FILTERS

Now on to one of the other big critical elements of the 2X. The filter. It’s an analog-modeling subtractive synth. Does it sound analog?

The answer there, is yes, and no.

It’s not analog in the same way the Moog ladder filter is analog, in its sound. The tightness of the envelopes and the overall tone and behavior of the filter feels more in line with the Prophet Rev2, and so like the Rev2, it’s great for plucks and super snappy sounds. But juicy round 80s and funk basses can be accomplished on it with minimal effort. But it isn’t the same super round, mildly saturated filter tone that a Slim Phatty puts out. And the Resonance doesn’t quite hit as nicely on the 2X as it does on the Moog. Again, it’s more like the Rev2 in that arena.

The different filter modes are also quite nice, and the different Lopass modes are musical and pleasing, and the Hipass, Bandpass, and Notch+LP are fun and offer useful sound-sculpting capabilities.

What IS extra nice, is that it has not only a Velocity on/off button (a control knob for variable velocity mod amount would have been nice, but it’s fine as it is), and multi-level Keyboard Tracking for the filter. So for melodic toplines, midrange basslines, and arpeggios, you can really add some energy and life to your riffs with the push of a button.

The filter does have its own character that sets it apart from other VAs like the JP8000, and so it lends well to making plucks, plucky basses, and short sounds with low cutoffs that the JP can’t manage due to the filter snap baked into the sound of the JPs. For trance plucks and basses, the 2X is pretty hard to beat

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AMPLITUDE

Not really too much to say here. Standard ADSR envelope and Gain to be found here. Same nice and tight behavior as with the filter.

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LFO

Fairly standard LFOs to be found here, although I must confess, having used the Blofeld, TI2, and Mininova, the LFO routing options and waveform choices on the 2X feel really restricted. convincing Dubstep and DnB wobbles are a challenge with these since they don’t have a Sine waveform option, and the number of potential routings is pretty small. However, for more standard types of basic modulations, it’s adequate. The Nord Lead 3 definitely spoils you a lot more with options.

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MODULATION

This is another somewhat weak point of the synth. The settings are fairly typical, and the same can be found on the NL3, and Slim Phatty, and so on. But the inability to link the Mod envelope to more than 3 sources, and the pitch only being for Osc 2, seems like an oversight. Being able to modulate the master pitch, or fade in the LFO amount or Rate would have been helpful. At least the Pulse Width can be modded using these parameters, so I can make some of my favorite types of pluck sounds with it.

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EFFECTS

Like all the early Nord Lead keyboards, the only FX you ever get is Distortion. On the NL3, that came with an adjustable level, which you could pair with the Moog style filter for screaming acid sounds, On the 2X, it isn’t much more than a saturator that soft clips the sound and adds some gain. If you want really crunchy screaming distortion, you’re going to need to run this through external FX.

Having said that, once you run this synth through some reverb and delay, or phaser, it really starts to shine. Dry, it sounds a bit lifeless. but once you add in FX like you would use in a final track, the synth comes to life.

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UNISON

And so we come to the Unison. One of the most famous and beloved features of the 2 and 2X. Activating it turns on 2 voices per key pressed, which if you use Poly mode and play chords, creates some nice fat sounds that have a very pleasant stereo spread. By digging into a Special submenu using the Shift key, you can change the Detune amount for the Unison, to create more extreme effects. Great for Trance and Psytrance pads, and wide, detuned leads.

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CONCLUSION

So here at the end of all things, the question arises:

Is the Nord Lead 2X still worth the money? Is it worth getting? Will it still be useful in music today?

In this sound designer and musician’s opinion, yes.

While it lacks the fearsome modulation options of a TI2 or a Blofeld, and it can’t pull off huge SuperSaws like the JP8080, nor the super heavy tones of a Moog, the Nord Lead 2X still excels at bright, punchy, bold leads, plucks, and basses, that you can record dry, add whatever reverb or delay you need to for the sound, and minor subtractive EQing to balance it, and that’s it.

Its sound fits in any mix, and with careful adjustments to the Velocity and keyboard tracking, this synth will add rich musical depth to your song that many newer synths lack. What it’s missing in mod options, it makes up for with a characterful sound that can be as modern or retro as you like.

Modern Techno and Classic Trance producers in particular will find it useful for bright plucks, and bold punchy analog-style stab sounds - and tight rolling basses.

It’s definitely worthit and it has been a reliable stalwart in several of my most recent songs, and forms the foundation of their most engaging sounds. My 2X will accompany my JP and Virus with me to my grave.

You can also attain the same sound in VST format using the discoDSP Discovery VSTi

Hear it in action:

Big news for users of Roland Cloud VSTs!

Good news, everyone! If you use the Roland Cloud JD-800, JV1080, or XV5080 VSTs, our JD-08 and JV-2080 soundset packs now include .bin files compatible with the plugins!

So if you’re a user of those plugins, and been wishing you had access to those sounds, now you can download and use the sounds easily!

A taste of our sounds in action

For those of you curious how our presets sound in actual finished songs, here’s a couple songs that feature our sounds!

Contains presets from:

Couloir for Nord Lead 2X
Ascension 2 for Virus TI

Icefall for Prohet Rev2

Altitude for JP80x0

Contains presets from:

Pinnacle for Nord Lead 3

Icefall for Prophet Rev2

Altitude for JP80x0

Ascension 2 for Virus TI

Contains presets from:

Ascension for Virus TI

Icefall for Prophet Rev2

Couloir for Nord Lead 2X

Contains presets from:

Ascension for Virus TI

Ascension 2 for Virus TI

Icefall for Prophet Rev2

Couloir for Nord Lead 2X

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Contains presets from:

Fractals for Virus TI

Revolve for Prophet Rev2

Gnosis for Prophet Rev2

The Nord Lead 2 & 2X have arrived!

Finally snagged a great deal on a Nord Lead 2X, and we just got a Trance soundset for it up!

By the looks of things, it’s the very first fully dedicated Trance soundbank for the 2 and 2X ever made by anyone, so if you’ve been wanting some solid NL2/X sounds for your productions, now we have some available!

And what’s more, is these patches will also load into the DiscoDSP Discovery VSTi! So All you Discovery users can use these sounds in your songs too!

Buy it now!

Attention Adam Szabo Viper Users!

User of Adam Szabo’s Viper VSTi? Wish you could use our Virus soundsets in Adam’s powerful Virus emulator?

Good news!

Our Virus soundbanks will load into the VST and work mostly the same!

They will also work in that 56300 Virus Emulator that’s been circulating around the web.

So if you wound up here on our site while hunting for Viper soundsets and are wondering why the menu option for it redirects you to the Virus page, that’s why! The banks are cross-compatible!

Cheers!

How To Route External Synths Through the Virus TI2 Inputs

Ever wished you could run your dry-as-the-Sahara synth through some sweet effects? Have a TI2 sitting around that could use some extra love? Why not combine both and route your synth into your TI2 and turn your dry synth into a massive monster!

The user manual is vague on the process, and current info about the steps are scarce on google, so I made this handy How To video to help you get everything hooked up and running!